How to check lime honey. What is counterfeit

22.09.2019 Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes, cheese cakes

Greetings to everyone in my electronic beekeeper diary!

Yesterday a friend called me and asked for advice on honey. He went to visit relatives in Kazakhstan and wanted to bring local honey to his grandmother.

Walking through the counters, I bought a couple of test jars from different manufacturers, in the end one honey turned out to be sour, the other started to hurt my stomach.

I explained to him for a long time how to choose a good product, and then I thought that it would be better to write down all these recommendations so that you could take a printout with you. Look for helpful tips below.

A Few Tricks When Choosing Honey

Liquid honey is available only for a month after honey collection, which lasts from late July to late September. By the end of October, all of the harvested honey begins to crystallize and thicken, except for the acacia and heather honey. Therefore, if you are offered liquid honey on the market in winter, most likely it was melted or diluted with glucose syrup. Remember that when honey is heated to 40 degrees and above, it loses all its valuable properties and turns into ordinary sweet syrup.
To check the naturalness of liquid honey, dip a spoon into it and lift it up - high-quality honey will slowly flow down with a long thread, and if it breaks, a slide will form on the surface of the honey, which will slowly spread. Fake honey is quickly poured from a spoon or scattered in a spray. You can wind honey on a spoon - if it lies in even folds, then this is not a fake in front of you.
Be sure to smell honey and taste it - it should have a fragrant smell and characteristic taste that cannot be compared with anything else. The lack of aroma indicates the artificial origin of the honey, and the caramel flavor indicates that the honey was exposed to high temperatures.
The color of honey is not an indicator of its quality, therefore white honey does not mean sugar, and dark brown does not mean the presence of molasses or sugar syrup in honey. Melilot, acacia and fireweed honey have light shades, buckwheat, cherry and honeydew honey are dark brown, and other varieties can be light yellow, amber and dark amber.

There are ways to check the quality of honey in more detail at home. Some housewives dissolve honey in water and drip lugol or iodine - a blue solution indicates that starch or flour has been added to the product. More curious experts set up a real chemical laboratory in the kitchen, but this can be avoided if you take honey from a trusted beekeeper friend who keeps bees in an ecologically clean area.

Source: www.edimdoma.ru

How to choose natural honey on the market

And the problem of how to choose real honey on the market is faced by many, especially - the townspeople - is acute. It's no joke - both shops and markets are filled with fakes of varying severity, and in some places the sellers are so convincing and professional in their fakes that it is almost impossible to leave them without buying.

So, instead of a truly natural product, some beekeepers-businessmen sell one that is made by bees, but not from nectar or honeydew, but from simple sugar syrup, which the beekeepers themselves diligently feed their pets with. Honey that is two or three years old is often sold, which has been overheated and poured many times. No one, of course, recognizes its antiquity.

And the most severe fakes are herbal syrups, with the help of additives disguised as a natural product. Such surrogates are most often prepared by evaporating melon or watermelon juices. Passing them off as natural honey is the most difficult thing, but sometimes fraudsters succeed. In order not to be deceived and choose real high-quality honey, you should know the main signs of a natural product.

How to tell good honey from fakes

Taste.
It should be somewhat astringent and cloying. How to choose natural honey to taste? It has a pronounced specificity. Linden is slightly softer, sunflower or buckwheat - especially bright and clear. Fake or honey collected from sugar syrup tastes like banal sugar syrup. As a rule, they do not cause a slight burning sensation on the tongue, which is typical for a natural product.
By smell.
Likewise with the smell. How to choose quality honey on the market? Smell it! Any natural product has a specific aroma, even when thickened. And sugar syrups hardly smell.
Overall consistency.
It is easiest to identify by rubbing a drop of sweet treat between your fingers. How to choose natural honey? It will rub easily evenly and be absorbed into the skin. The fake most often forms clots and lumps easily felt by the fingers.

Very often, when choosing honey on the market or from hand, it is possible to evaluate its consistency by dipping a stick or spoon into it. When poured from a spoon, the "correct" honey will form a thin thread, and on the surface of the bulk it will accumulate in the form of a pagoda, which will gradually spread out. A fake, as a rule, drips from a spoon and immediately falls into the main volume.
By color.
How to choose the right honey by color? This feature is the most difficult. So, some varieties of honey can very easily be confused with "sugar" because of their lightness. However, honey made from sugar tends to appear overly white. In addition, natural honey is always quite homogeneous and transparent, while in fakes, turbidity and a slight sediment at the bottom are usually clearly visible.

But even knowing how to choose natural honey based on these characteristics, it is better not to rush and take the selected samples in the smallest quantities - a mayonnaise jar, for example. And already at home to conjure over them. For example, there are good methods for assessing the presence of certain additives in honey.

What is added to honey

Starch.
It is calculated by the usual school experience: a few drops of iodine are dripped into the jar. If there is starch, the stains on the honey surface will turn blue.
Sugar.
It is even easier to check: a piece of bread is dipped into the honey and lasts ten minutes. After that, it is removed. If the bread has hardened, then the honey is good. If it is soft, then there is a lot of sugar syrup in it.
Water.
Water will definitely show itself if you drop honey on a sheet of paper. A good product will remain a drop on paper, and diluted with water will begin to form liquid stains or even leak.
A piece of chalk.
It is added to the composition of the product most often to give the impression of thickness and density. To find it, you need to drop vinegar essence into a spoon with honey. His hiss means bad.

In order to check whether you have chosen high-quality honey, you can simply poke into it with a red-hot wire. If, after taking it out, anything remains on it, this is a fake. Good honey does not stick to hot metal. And only after these manipulations at home help you choose real high-quality honey, you can safely go to the market and buy a full supply for the winter from an honest seller.

By the way, it is important to remember that no natural honey can be stored for several years without thickening. On the good, after a few months it begins to crystallize. And if in the middle of winter they sell you a product that is pure as a baby's tear and as fluid as a mountain stream, you should know that something is wrong with it.

Source: sostavproduktov.ru

Distinctive properties and signs of natural honey

Consistency is the first sign of real honey. First of all, it should be homogeneous, at the bottom of the jar with honey there should be no sediment or any stratification. Also, depending on the season, ambient temperature, this indicator is different: young honey has a liquid consistency, and by winter it becomes thicker.

With the onset of cold weather, natural honey, as a rule, crystallizes ("candied") - it becomes lighter, cloudy and thick. If this does not happen, then the honey is fake.

Attention!

The exception to the rule is acacia honey, this type of honey crystallizes more slowly than others.

That is why in winter real honey cannot be liquid, in this case it was either melted down (usually beekeepers say “dissolved”) to give it a marketable appearance, or it was obtained as a result of bees feeding with sugar. By the way, in the winter on store shelves, usually packaged honey is just a liquid consistency, which should be alarming.

Pay attention to the fluidity of the honey (this method is suitable for freshly pumped liquid honey). The quality of young honey can be defined as follows: dip a spoon into a bottle of honey, scoop it up and lift it up. Real honey lasts a long, long time, flows down in an even trickle, does not break into drops, falls on a plate like a slide, and then smoothly spreads over its surface. The last drop of the dripping honey bounces and pulls back to the spoon.
If the spoon is rotated around its axis, then honey should "wrap" around it like a ribbon. Unripe honey usually drains off immediately, no matter how quickly you rotate the spoon.

Try rubbing a little honey between your fingers as well. The real one is completely absorbed, the fake one forms a lump that can be rolled.
Taste. Real honey, in addition to being simply sweet, should also taste pleasantly bitter, cause a slight sore throat, it should have a tart taste. Hold a little honey in your mouth and swallow - the right honey will "pull" your throat.
Smell and aroma. Real honey smells like flowers, the smell is unobtrusive, natural. The artificial has two extremes: the smell may be completely absent or be harsh, unnatural, caramelized.
The color of honey depends on the honey plants from which the nectar was collected. For example, flower honey comes in light shades, buckwheat honey is brown, linden honey is amber. White color may indicate that the bees were fed sugar syrup. In this case, they ferment the sugar and process it like regular nectar from the fields. As a result, ordinary honey is obtained, which is difficult to determine even in laboratory conditions.

Of course, in terms of its useful properties and taste, it is significantly inferior to natural.

Often, unscrupulous sellers offer buyers liquid honey of a dark color (supposedly buckwheat) in spring or early summer. This color can be obtained if you melt last year's frozen honey. Such honey is "dead", because when heated above 40 degrees, it loses all its beneficial properties.

For the same reason, honey cannot be added to hot drinks (tea, milk, cocoa). For cosmetic purposes (during the preparation of homemade masks, scrubs), it is advisable to slightly heat the crystallized honey in a water bath at a water temperature of about 40 degrees.

The so-called May honey is very popular among the population. For experienced beekeepers, the word "May" evokes an involuntary smile. No, theoretically honey can be harvested in May, but no beekeeper in his right mind would take food in the form of sweet flower nectar and pollen from the future brood, which they need for growth and development. Pumping honey in early spring leads to lethargy, weakness of future toilers-bees and a shortage of many tens of kg of honey in the fall during the main collection of bee products.

How to experimentally establish the authenticity of honey at home?

The high demand for honey and other beekeeping products creates fertile ground for fraudsters. Currently, flour, chalk, sawdust, starch, sucrose, molasses and other fillers are used to create counterfeit products.

Some types of counterfeits are difficult to detect even in the laboratory. For example, feeding the bees bringing nectar from the fields with sugar syrup. The color of such honey is usually lighter, almost white, and it crystallizes more slowly.

Methods for detecting fake honey using chemical reactions:

Dissolve a little honey in a glass of water, then pour the liquid into a transparent container. If the product contains impurities (flour, chalk, starch, sawdust), then they will either float to the surface or settle to the bottom.
To detect starch or flour, add a drop of iodine to the honey solution, while the solution should turn blue.
Drop vinegar into the solution. If something hissed, this is a sure sign of the presence of chalk in it.
But using this method, you can identify the presence of sugar or starch syrup in honey. Prepare a 10% honey solution. Add a little medical alcohol to 1/2 part of the solution, if it turns white - starch syrup was mixed into the honey. To detect signs of sugar molasses, you need to add to the remaining half of silver nitrate or lapis. If a white precipitate has fallen out, it means that it is present there.
The presence of impurities can also be determined using blotting paper (blotting paper). We put a small amount of honey on the paper, leave it for 3-5 minutes. If during this time the paper on the reverse side is not soaked, then this indicates the high quality of honey.
You can find out if honey is diluted with sugar syrup if you immerse a piece of bread in honey for 10 minutes. We look: if the piece is solid, then the honey is normal, and if it has crawled or softened, then syrup was probably mixed into it.

Watch a video on how to choose the right honey:

Source: www.maski-natural.ru

Methods for determining the quality of honey

The people have their own methods of how to determine the quality of honey, for example, using a chemical pencil.

The bottom line is this: a layer of honey is applied to paper, a finger or a spoon and is drawn over it with a chemical pencil, or the pencil is dipped into the honey itself.

It is assumed if the honey is falsified, i.e. contains all sorts of impurities (sugar, sugar honey, as well as an increased amount of water), then a colored pencil mark will remain. However, researcher V.G. Chudakov in 1972 tested 36 samples of honey of different quality, including 13 falsified, and believes that this folk method for determining the naturalness of honey and assessing its quality is absolutely wrong.

There is another popular method to determine the falsification of honey, it consists in a test on blotting paper. A small amount of honey falls on the blotting paper. If after a few minutes a watery spot appears on the back of the paper, this is considered a sign of tampering.

Again, V.G. Chudakov conducted laboratory studies of this sample, which led to the conclusion that the sample actually allows to determine almost 100% of falsified honey, but besides, a part of natural honey also falls into the category of falsified.

Advice!

If you buy honey, then look in the reference books to see how it should look. The main thing is that it must have a certain aroma, honey taste, that is, the bouquet corresponding to a certain type of natural honey must match the color.

If the honey is too white it should raise suspicion, is it sugar? If the color is dark brown, is it not honeydew? If its aroma is dulled, the taste of caramel is felt - it means that it is melted honey.

Also, pay attention to the consistency of honey - it should correspond to the density of the variety, at a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, it should be wrapped around a spoon like a ribbon, with sweet threads, interrupted at a certain moment.

Liquid honey should raise suspicion. Most likely it is unripe honey. It will not be stored, fermented, as it contains a lot of water. Such honey will not "wrap" around the spoon, but will simply drain from it. If you buy honey in winter, it should not be liquid, and if so, then it is most likely warmed up or diluted.

When buying, check the honey for fermentation. When stirring, it should not be felt that it is not viscous, actively foams, gas bubbles appear on the surface, that a specific sour smell emanates from it, and there is also an alcoholic or burnt aftertaste.

Before buying large quantities of honey, buy 100-200 grams for a sample.

Beware of buying honey from apiaries located along highways with heavy traffic. Such honey may contain an increased amount of lead compounds and other substances that get on the flowers with the exhaust gases of cars. With nectar and pollen, lead gets into honey, and this is dangerous for the health of those who consume it.

Honey collected in areas with unfavorable ecology is very harmful.

How to identify impurities in honey?

To identify various impurities in honey, the following methods are recommended. Pour water into a transparent jar, add one teaspoon of honey, stir - the honey will dissolve, the impurity will settle at the bottom.

In order to detect an admixture of flour or starch in honey, you need to pour 3-5 ml of an aqueous solution of honey (1: 2) into a jar or glass and add 3-5 drops of a solution of Lugol (or tincture of iodine). If the honey contains flour or starch, then the solution will turn blue.

An admixture of starch syrup (a mixture of cool water and starchy sugar) can be recognized by its appearance, stickiness and lack of crystallization. You can also mix one part of honey with 2-3 parts of distilled water, add a quarter of the volume of 96% alcohol and shake.

If the honey contains starch syrup, then the solution will take on a milky color. After settling this solution, a transparent semi-liquid sticky mass (dextrin) will settle. If there is no impurity, the solution will remain clear.

It is possible to detect impurities of sugar (beet) molasses and ordinary sugar by adding a solution of silver nitrate (lapis) to a 5-10% solution of honey in water. If a white precipitate of silver chloride falls out, this indicates the presence of an impurity. If there is no sediment, then the honey is clean.

There is another way: add 22.5 ml of methyl (wood) alcohol to 5 ml of a 20% solution of honey in distilled water, when an abundant yellowish-white precipitate forms, it will become clear that honey contains sugar syrup.

To detect an impurity of inverted sugar (grated honey), there is a rather complicated way: grind 5 g of honey with a small amount of ether (in which the products of fructose breakdown are dissolved), then filter the ether solution into a bowl, evaporate to dryness and add 2-3 drops of freshly prepared 1 % solution of resorcinol in concentrated hydrochloric acid (specific gravity 1.125 g).

If the impurity turns orange (to cherry red), then there is inverted sugar.

The increased percentage of sucrose in honey, which can be established in laboratory conditions, indicates its poor quality: in natural flower honey, sucrose is no more than 5%, no more than 10% - in honeydew. The better the quality of natural honey, the less sucrose it contains. "Sugar" honey has its own organoleptic characteristics: the smell of old honeycombs, insipid inexpressive taste, liquid consistency (if fresh), with prolonged storage it becomes thick, sticky, sticky.

"Sugar" honey (bees were fed or fed with sugar), like all unnatural honeys, is characterized by the absence of vitamins, organic acids, protein and aromatic substances, and mineral salts. In sugar honey, silicon is the main element, and there are practically no other salts, there are only traces of them. In natural honey, the opposite is true.

If the honey does not crystallize, then we can assume that there is an admixture of potato molasses.

Advice!

In order to detect an admixture of honeydew honey, pour 1 part of an aqueous solution of honey (1: 1) into a glass and add 2 parts of lime water, then heat the mixture to a boil. If brown flakes are formed, precipitating, then this indicates the presence of an admixture of honeydew honey.

How can you tell a fake?

In a cup of weak warm tea, add a little of what you bought under the guise of honey. If you are not fooled, the tea will darken, but no sediment will form at the bottom. Over time, honey becomes cloudy and thickens (candied) - this is a sure sign of good quality. And not, as many mistakenly believe, that honey has gone bad.

Sometimes honey during storage is divided into two layers: it thickens only from below, and from above it remains liquid. This suggests that it is immature, and therefore needs to be eaten as soon as possible - unripe honey is stored for only a few months.

Attention!

Careless beekeepers do not take out bees to collect nectar, but simply feed them with sugar. Sugar honey is unnatural. There is nothing useful in it. Such "sugar" honey is unnaturally white.

In real honey, there is no free water - in mature honey, water (about 20%) is completely bound in a true saturated solution. Honey with sugar syrup has a high humidity, this can be checked in the following way: dip a piece of bread in honey, and after 8-10 minutes take it out. In high-quality honey, the bread will harden. If, on the contrary, it has softened or completely crawled, then in front of you is nothing more than sugar syrup.

Honey sellers' tricks for gullible buyers

First, cover your ears and don't listen to what they tell you. Check everything yourself. Of course, one honest salesperson can fall into a bunch of liars, but how do you know that the one who stands in front of you is honest? Try honey not only from the top, but from the bottom of the jar as well. Do not hesitate to reach into the jar with a spoon and do not listen to sellers who start shouting: "Do not spoil the product!"

Unheated honey - both fresh transparent and sugared - is an effective antiseptic, and a clean spoon in a jar cannot spoil it. It is another matter if there was no honey at the bottom, or this honey was previously heated, which led to the loss of its antiseptic and all other healing properties.

Crystallization (sugaring) is a natural process for honey that does not affect its quality and composition of nutrients. Don't be confused by crystallized honey. Do not come the next day to the seller who promised you uncrystallized honey. They will bring the same, but warmed up. And in no case should you heat honey, because this turns it into a simple sweet substance, devoid of so many beneficial properties!

Good honey means a natural product produced by bees based on pollen, not sugar, and bad honey means everything else (a lot of water in the composition, the use of artificial sweeteners and sugar, etc.).

How can one recognize good honey and recognize bad honey in modern diversity?

1. Read the composition

This is the first step to help you learn about the presence or absence of extra additives in your honey, which means choosing a better option. The manufacturer is obliged to indicate all the ingredients in the percentage in which they are in the product, up to certain limits, so that a large amount of something extra will not go unnoticed.

2. Natural honey is not sticky

Take some honey and try rubbing it between your fingers. High-quality natural honey spreads well and is easily absorbed by the skin (of course, if you took just a little), and if it remains sticky for a long time and is not absorbed at all, then there is a high probability that sugar and artificial sweeteners have been added to this honey.

3. Caramelization

Place a couple of teaspoons of honey in a bowl and microwave on high power. Good honey will caramelize, while bad honey will foam and form a lot of bubbles.

4. Paper check

Place a few drops of honey on the paper. If honey hasn’t punched a hole or even thinned the paper, then this is a quality product that does not contain water. Accordingly, honey, which easily and quickly made a hole in the paper, is of poor quality.

5. Ant trick

Ants don't like real honey. If you have access to ants, just place a piece or drop of honey in a place where they can be observed. If the ants go around honey, then it is natural!

6. Honey and water

The easiest and most effective way to test the quality of honey is to see how it reacts with water. If you throw a spoonful of good natural honey into a glass of water, then it will fall apart and go to the bottom, while low-quality honey with artificial additives will begin to dissolve.

7. Tingling in the mouth

Natural, 100% pure honey from bees causes a slight tingling and tingling sensation in the mouth. Bad honey does not have such an effect.

8. Honey on bread

Place some honey on a slice of bread. If the bread becomes harder, then natural honey. If honey only moistens the surface of the bread, then this is a bad product that contains a lot of water.

9. Crystallization

Pure natural honey crystallizes over time, while honey with artificial additives retains its liquid, syrupy form for a very long time.

Honey - according to the recognition of consumers and science, a product that is useful, healing and the most demanded of the entire range of beekeeping, but only if it is natural. Lucky for those who have familiar beekeepers who have the opportunity to buy proven products. And what should an ordinary market buyer do, how to protect himself from counterfeiting and be sure of its quality?

Honey varieties

Sellers often present a cheap product for which there is no demand as more popular and expensive. For this reason, you should have an idea of \u200b\u200bhow to distinguish between different types of honey.

The color, aroma and taste of each variety depend primarily on the plant pollinated by the bees just prior to production. But there is no pure honey, because insects have a habit of flying from place to place, often even changing the terrain. However, in each variety it is possible to determine which range of colors prevails.

Types and color of honey

Each of the species has its own external characteristics and healing properties.

Lime. It is recognized as the most useful in the fight against colds. Basically, it has a light amber color, can be yellowish and transparent.
Buckwheat. It has a rich taste with a slight bitterness. Dark brown or dark yellow color with a reddish tint predominates.
Forest. The color range ranges from light yellow to light brown.
Lugovoi. Has light shades.
Acacia. The honey from this plant is almost transparent. An exception is the candied state, when the color becomes almost white.
Clover. Amber color with shades from light to rich and a special aroma.
Crimson. Only the shades of honey took not berries, but flowers, so the product itself is light tones.

When buying honey, there is no way to conduct any research, and the seller will not allow the use of additional substances to test their products, but I want to buy a natural and high-quality product. It remains only to learn how to determine whether honey is really real, based on external signs.

If there is foam with bubbles on the surface of the sweet product, this is a sign of fermentation, therefore, water has been added to it. The content of natural honey contains wax, pollen and other inclusions of natural origin. Transparency and an overly clean appearance indicate that the product is artificial.
When rubbed with your fingers, natural honey should be absorbed into the skin.
Tasting the taste, you should feel its astringency, slight burning sensation, tingling in the mouth and sweetness in moderation. When the sweetness and caramel flavor is felt, chances are that the honey was "warmed". This technique is sometimes used to add presentability to the product, but the useful properties are lost, and in some cases (depending on the heating temperature) the product may even be harmful.
Natural honey has a unique fragrant aroma, and its artificial counterpart is odorless.
Do not be alarmed when a beekeeping product is sugar-coated. This is an indicator of naturalness, since it is prone to crystallization, in contrast to a fake. Knowledgeable buyers do not always strive to buy honey in liquid form, and its crystallization speaks of excellent quality, which is the most reliable test.

Checking a bee product at home for additives

Viscosity maturity index. A quality and mature product is a product that has undergone a certain processing by bees, has reached a minimum degree of moisture and is sealed by them. Some unscrupulous beekeepers, in pursuit of profit, begin pumping out honey without waiting for the process to complete and reach maturity. As a result, the product is not intended for long-term storage, fermentation begins in it, and the taste and healing qualities are lost.

At home, a maturity test can be performed using a regular spoon, which should be scooped up with some honey and raised until a wide, elastic trickle is formed. It should drain continuously and settle in a heap without spreading.

Again, we collect the result of bee labor with a spoon, lift and scroll, holding it horizontally around the axis. The honey should not drain. This speaks of his maturity. Otherwise, it will look like a liquid mass and begin to spread over the surface.

The candied product began to divide into liquid and crystallized parts - an indicator of immaturity.

Weight check. Honey is heavier than water. Average weight of 1 liter of honey is 1.4 kg minus utensils. If this indicator is less, then a significant part of the water is present.

Simple ways to check the naturalness of honey

Dissolve one teaspoon of honey in warm water and leave to stand for an hour. A counterfeit bee product will leave sediment at the bottom of the glass or float on the surface.
Put some honey on a piece of paper and light it. A quality product will remain unchanged on burnt paper. The counterfeit will turn brown like burnt sugar and leave a matching smell.
An effective way to check the naturalness of honey and convenient even when buying on the market is a chemical pencil. When it comes into contact with moisture, it changes color, so by dropping it into a bee product, you can easily determine whether the product is being sold to you or diluted with water with the addition of granulated sugar.

Sugar is often a part of a counterfeit product. Beekeepers recommend checking its presence at home in several ways.

Dip some honey in hot milk - if it is a fake with the addition of burnt sugar, it will curdle.
Tea with natural honey will color it dark, the fake will not change.
Put a piece of bread crumb in the sweet and leave for 10-15 minutes. Hardened bread is a sign of quality, if it softens, then in front of you is honey with the addition of sugar syrup. Doubtful quality is also given by the white color, which is close to sugar.
Place some honey on paper that can absorb moisture and try to smudge it. If it works out, and there are wet traces, you can be sure that the composition of the surrogate contains water or syrup.
A simple way to check for naturalness at home is the procedure with a hot stainless steel wire. Dip it in honey and take it out. The material at hand must be clean, if traces of a sticky mass remain - this is not a pure product.
The authenticity is easy to determine by heating the honey poured into a spoon over a fire. The counterfeit will ignite and the natural product will slightly char.

Definition of other additives

Often, a spoiled product needs to be sold by any means, and so that an uninformed buyer does not notice signs of poor quality, sellers go to various tricks. The quality suffers from the presence of additives not inherent to honey, but acquires a presentation.

Iodine is one of the determinants. It is enough to drop a few drops of it on a sweet product, and you can determine the presence of starch added for thickening. As a result of a chemical reaction, the color will change to blue or blue. The more intense the color, the more foreign matter. In real honey, the hue does not change.

With the help of vinegar essence, the added chalk is revealed. To do this, dilute a spoonful of the product in 0.5 cups of water and drip vinegar. If water hiss, then there is chalk.

A test is also carried out for the presence of molasses. Mix 2 tablespoons of water and 1 tablespoon of honey and add a few drops of ammonia, shake well. A change in the color of the solution to brown and the formation of the same precipitate indicate that the additive is still present.

And also knowledge of when honey is candied can be useful as general information. The process generally starts one or two months after collection. The exception is mustard honey, which can thicken after 5 days if left in an open container. A white acacia product, on the other hand, remains in its original state for more than six months, and if the jar is closed tightly - longer.

Unnatural honey can, at best, do no good to your health, and at worst, be detrimental to it. So you shouldn't neglect checking, at least minimal.

Video: how to determine the quality of honey at home

Signs of natural and types of fake honey. Ways to distinguish a counterfeit by external signs and using chemical reactions. Recommendations on how not to spoil the bee nectar.

The content of the article:

Not everyone knows how to distinguish real honey from fake, but it is an absolutely necessary skill. The benefits of natural bee nectar are undeniable, but this cannot be said about falsified nectar, it is unsuitable not only for food, but also for the preparation of cosmetics. And if you do not want to pay money for a useless fake, it is worth learning how to recognize it.

Properties and characteristics of natural honey

Honey is loved for its health-promoting sweetness, unlike sugar, for example. For the same reasons, this product is more expensive, and therefore attractive to fraudsters, because it is profitable to counterfeit.

In order not to fall for their tricks, you should know the signs and properties of real honey:

Consistency... In real bee nectar, it is homogeneous, without precipitation, stratification and impurities. But it can be different (depending on the ambient temperature and the time of year): for young honey it is liquid, and for mature honey (approximately by the end of winter) it is crystallized. Sugaring occurs gradually, the closer the cold is, the thicker and thicker the product becomes, lighter and more turbid.
Fluidity... It is possessed only by liquid honey. It should drain for a long time, in a thin thread, without breaking into separate drops, forms a slide on a plate, and the last drop springs and stretches, as if bouncing, up. High-quality ripe nectar can be wrapped around the spoon by turning it. And immature flows down like water. This happens because there is twice as much water in it than in quality, but there are few enzymes and sucrose. The thing is that bees process nectar for a week, honey is infused, water is evaporated from it, complex sugars are broken down, the product is enriched with enzymes. When everything is ready, the bees seal the combs with wax. But unscrupulous beekeepers can pump out the substance even before sealing to free the combs, and an immature product appears on sale.
Taste... Naturally, the taste of honey is sweet, but also necessarily tart, with the presence of a pleasant bitterness that does not make the throat very sore. Some varieties have a specific taste, more tart or with a stronger bitterness, which causes the same increased sore throat, but in no case should it be sour (this is a sign of fermentation that has begun) and clearly bitter (this means that the product has been stored wrong and messed up).
Smell... Natural honey smells unobtrusively of flowers, falsified or has no smell at all, or it is unnaturally sharp, giving off caramel, which means that it has been heated.
Color... Different shades of yellow, it all depends on which plants the nectar was collected from by the bees. Buckwheat honey is dark, brownish, with a lime shade similar to amber, acacia honey is pale yellow, and flower honey is transparent light yellow. White is unnatural for a natural product.
The weight... Bee nectar is heavier than water; in a 1 liter jar, there will be about one and a half kilograms of honey by weight.
Transparency... Liquid honey is quite transparent (but not too much), only acacia honey is slightly turbid, other varieties become cloudy only when they are sugar-coated (crystallized).
Crystallization... This process is quite fast, taking from two to four weeks (depending on the type of honey) after the bribe. Usually, nectar is candied by autumn, but some varieties, due to the high fructose content in them, pull with this until December (acacia, heather, chestnut), or even longer (up to a year), especially if the container is tightly closed enough. Crystals in candied honey should be small, and it itself looks like ghee.
Foam... It can be present only in an unripe product, in the one where the fermentation process began, it should not be of high quality.

Remember! You should buy honey during the season (mass pumping begins on August 14, at Honey Spas), from a well-known beekeeper who is engaged in such a trade on a regular basis and appreciates his reputation. It is more profitable to make a wholesale purchase (in the quantity you need for a whole year), you can ask the seller for a discount.

Types of fakes of natural honey

What tricks do scammers use to make fake bee nectar. For this, chalk, flour, sugar, starch, molasses are used ... Moreover, sometimes fake honey is very difficult to detect even in the presence of a laboratory.

Let's consider the types of fakes in more detail:

Natural honey with additives... The most dangerous counterfeit. To create such a fake, thick sugar syrup tinted with tea is added to natural honey. And given the fact that sugar is also not cheap now, syrup can be replaced with various substances similar in appearance with the addition of flavors, but already much more harmful to health than sugar and tea.
Artificial honey... It is made in factories from sugar (beet or cane), as well as from the juice of melon, watermelon, corn and other products with a high sugar content and tinted with saffron, St. John's wort or tea decoctions. There are no enzymes in such a substance, it does not smell like flowers, but it is difficult to distinguish it from the real externally and by taste. Artificial honey is not passed off as natural by conscientious sellers, but is sold with appropriate labels indicating its origin ("Beet honey", "Watermelon honey", "Melon honey"). But scammers can pass off such a product as natural, overstating its price.
Honey not made from nectar... If you place feeders with sugar syrup next to the bee hives, then insects will not find it difficult to get nectar, but ferment honey from sugar. The result is an almost ordinary-looking product, inferior to the natural taste and useful properties. Such honey is very light, whitish, crystallizes slowly. But if you mix it with the real one, then it becomes almost impossible to identify a fake even in a laboratory. Therefore, it is so important to have a familiar beekeeper whom you trust and whose decency do not doubt.
Melted natural honey... In the spring or early summer, unscrupulous sellers offer buyers liquid nectar supposedly from this year's harvest. In fact, this is last year's overheated product, which lost all its value when heated (above 40 degrees). A melted product can be distinguished by its caramel flavor, it is often passed off as buckwheat, because when heated it can darken and acquire a characteristic brownish tint, or May. In fact, a practical beekeeper will never take away from bees (or rather, from their future brood) the food they need for growth and development. Having pumped out a large amount of honey in early spring, the beekeeper will not receive many tens of kilograms of nectar in the fall, since sluggish and weak bees simply will not collect it in large quantities. The May product is indeed pumped out by beekeepers, but in small quantities and, as a rule, for personal use, and not for sale and on an industrial scale.

A little trick! If you really really want to buy May honey, ask the seller to give you a part of it in honeycombs, because scammers cannot fake them. This way you can be sure of the naturalness of your purchase, and chewing the wax will strengthen your teeth and gums.

How to establish the authenticity of honey in practice

Fraudsters are interested in having their product bought at the real price. Therefore, even an experienced gourmet can confuse natural and fake honey. But if you know some tricks, then the counterfeit is quite easily determined both by external signs and with the help of chemistry.

Determination of the quality of honey by external signs

You can determine what is in front of you, fake or real honey, without laboratory research. Here are some tips on the outer traits of bee nectar to keep you out of your way:

Taste... Try the product first. If it dissolves without residue, there are no strong sugar crystals left on the tongue, and the throat is torn from the tart aftertaste, then it is of high quality. Moreover, do not hesitate and take it out with a spoon from the very bottom (it is at the bottom of the jar with counterfeit that there may be molasses). And if the seller is against it, it is better to bypass such honey.
Smell... Real nectar is bound to have a characteristic fragrant floral scent. The fake one has no smell.
Crystallization... If you see large and hard crystals in candied honey, then most likely this is a fake, fermented by bees from sugar syrup. In a natural product, the crystals should be fine.
Liquid state... Buyers like the product more in this form, although crystallized absolutely does not lose its useful properties. But if there is a demand for liquid honey, it means that the fraudsters organize the offer by dissolving (melting) the old honey. It will no longer contain useful substances, only pure glucose. It loses its healing properties at temperatures above 37 degrees, so, by the way, there is no particular health benefit to drinking hot tea with honey, not sugar. Only acacia, heather and chestnut nectar are candied later than all other varieties, and can remain liquid throughout the year (they contain more fructose). Any other real honey cannot be liquid in winter. If you see such a product on sale, it means that it was either melted or falsified (fermented by bees not from nectar, but from sugar syrup or honeydew). If you have a liquid product in front of you, sealed in honeycombs, you can be sure that this one has not been overheated. True, they are not insured against counterfeiting (the bees could have been fed with syrup).
Transparency, sediment and delamination... Honey is, of course, transparent as long as it is in a liquid state. But if it is super-transparent, and you can see through it even the bottom of the can, and the nectar also casts amber, having a bright shine and caramel taste, then most likely you are dealing with a melted product. Acacia honey can be transparent and slightly hazy, all other varieties are either transparent (so far liquid), or crystallized. If there is sediment or stratification in it (the substance is denser at the bottom than at the top), then this is definitely due to foreign impurities. This happens if, for example, scammers put molasses mixed with semolina on the bottom of a can, and poured real honey on top.
Impurities... In a natural product, if you look closely, you can see pollen and wax particles. Buy this honey calmly. But if grasses and parts of bees' bodies float in it, the same wax is large enough pieces, this means that either the nectar is natural, and the seller is very sloppy, if not unclean, or he deliberately added all this garbage to make his fake or low-quality authentic goods. In any case, it is better to refrain from buying.
The presence of foam... Such honey is not worth buying, it began to ferment or was pumped out unripe. In quality, there should be no foam.
Fluidity... A good product does not have a high fluidity, but sour, immature (it is poorly stored, quickly sour) or diluted with paddy - yes, because it contains a large amount of water. It is because of her that a fake product, if dropped on low-grade paper that absorbs moisture well (for example, newspaper or toilet paper), will spread over it or even seep through, forming wet spots around. Low-quality honey cannot be rolled onto a spoon, it will drip, making splashes and bubbles on the surface of the rest of the substance. But a real one, if you dip a clean wooden stick into it, and then lift it up, it will be pulled by a long uninterrupted thread, which, breaking off, will go down whole, forming a slide.
Absorbency... If you try to rub a drop of honey between your fingers, then the natural one will be absorbed into the skin without residue, and the fake one will leave a rolling lump on your fingers.
The weight... A jar with a volume of 800 ml should fit a product weighing 1 kg. If not, then it means that it has a lot of water (i.e. it is immature or diluted). And in a liter jar, by weight, there should be at least 1 kg of 400 g of bee nectar.
Healthfulness... Motherwort honey soothes, and raspberry and linden honey are useful for colds. But when you are at the counter, you will not be able to test these qualities. But if at home you felt the corresponding effect (for example, you should definitely be thrown into a fever from raspberry), then return to the seller and stock up on such goods for future use. Better yet, take the coordinates of this beekeeper so as not to miss the opportunity to buy a worthy product in the future.
Caked honey... It happens that the market sells a product in pieces. That is, it is so caked that a bank is no longer needed to store it, and even cutting such a monolith with a knife is quite difficult. It is clear that this is not a product of the current year, and maybe not of the past. If you trust the beekeeper, then such honey can be bought, but, of course, cheaper than fresher. But it is better not to take caked goods from unverified sellers. The fact is that honey absorbs smell and moisture. If stored in bad faith, it may contain unknown and not useful components.
Honeydew honey... If you set out to find such a product or, conversely, do not want to buy, then remember that it differs in that it does not have the usual honey smell, it is brownish in color, dark, sometimes even greenish. Its taste is very sweet, but there is no characteristic nectar aftertaste. Honeydew honey remains liquid for a long time, it is hygroscopic and therefore poorly stored, quickly sour.

Please note! Before buying honey on the market, ask the seller for a certificate of product quality. And in the store, pay attention to the color of the label. If it is white, it means that this is the highest quality product. And if it is blue, then it means that it is of poor quality or honeydew. Also read carefully what is written there. There must be such data: the variety and botanical type of honey, where and when it was collected, the address and name of the supplier, the standard.

Determination of counterfeit honey by chemical reactions

Having chosen a product that you visually like on the market, do not rush to purchase a large number of it at once. Even knowing how to distinguish honey from a fake in appearance, smell and taste, you can still be deceived. To prevent this from happening, buy 100 g for a sample, take the seller's contacts and agree that, if you like it, you will later take a large batch. And at home, calmly explore what you bought using simple chemical reactions.

There are different ways to check:

Water and alcohol... Stir in a glass of warm distilled water 1 tbsp. l. honey. High quality, without impurities will dissolve without residue. If there are impurities, they will settle or float up. And if you add a quarter of the volume of alcohol there, and the solution does not become cloudy, it means that the product is not honeydew. The milky color of the solution and the transparent sticky dextrin that has settled to the bottom means that there is starch syrup in the honey. Another way: dissolve in 5 tsp. distilled water bee nectar (1 tsp), add methyl alcohol (6 tsp). If a large amount of white-yellow sediment has formed, it means that it contains sugar syrup.
Lime... This test was proposed by A.F. Gubin. Stir honey in lime water and add distilled water (10: 1: 1). Boil. If brown flakes appear in the mixture, the product is honeydew.
Iodine... Dissolve honey in distilled water, and then add a couple of drops of iodine. Turned blue? There is starch or flour.
Starch... Sprinkle a drop of honey with a pinch of starch. If it stays on top, like a white cap, then you bought a good product. Otherwise, this is a fake.
Lapis and alcohol... At 10 h. L. stir 1 tsp of water. honey, add a little medical alcohol to half of this solution. If it turns white, starch syrup was mixed into the nectar. Add lapis to the rest of the solution. A white precipitate means the product has been mixed with molasses.
By fire... Drop honey on a piece of paper and light it. Is the paper burnt, and the nectar does not burn or melt? It means that it is of high quality, real. A fake one will melt if it is fermented by bees from syrup, and turns brown if it has already been diluted with sugar by humans. Another way: light the crystallized honey. Hissed, crackled - fake, silently melted - real.
Stainless steel wire... Heat it up, for example, by heating it over a gas burner or in a lighter flame, and sharply lower it into honey. Take out. If the wire is clean, the product is real, but the sticky mass on it will be evidence of falsification.
Blotter... Put honey on it and leave for 3-5 minutes. If, after this time, the paper underneath is not soaked on the back of the nectar, it is real. And the longer the paper does not get wet, the better the substance. True, some experts (V. G. Chudakov) assure that this is not an ideal method. He determines the fake with 100% accuracy, but it happens that natural honey falls into the category of fakes.
With vinegar... If chalk was mixed into honey, then it is very easy to detect by dropping vinegar into it. A fake product with added chalk will sizzle.
Chemical pencil... Apply a layer of honey on the paper and draw with a pencil. A colored trace will remain in the product with flour or starch additives. True, the same V.G. Chudakov believed that this method does not give a 100% guarantee.
Bread... There is very little water in high-quality nectar, and if you dip a piece of bread in it for 10 minutes, it remains firm. But in honey, diluted with sugar syrup, it will get wet, soften or even creep altogether.
Cold... Place the honey jar in the refrigerator. A good product will not remain liquid, it will thicken, unlike melted or one to which water was added.
Tea... Stir some nectar into the loose tea thoroughly. If there is sediment, it means that the honey is fake. A natural product will just make it a little darker and that's it.
Ether... This is a very difficult method for real chemists. They determine if the honey has been heated. In this case, inverted sugar must have formed in it. To be sure of this, rub with 1 tsp. nectar is a small amount of ether. Filter the resulting solution into a cup, then evaporate it to dryness and add 2-3 drops of a fresh 1% solution of resorcinol and hydrochloric acid to the residue. An orange, red or cherry color of the impurity means that this is a fake.

Important! Good honey thickens and crystallizes over time, and if yours is not sugared after a year or two, it is probably a fake or honeydew product. If after some time after the purchase it began to divide into two layers (thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top), this means that you bought unripe nectar. It should be used quickly, before fermenting.

How not to spoil natural honey yourself

So you've bought a quality product. Now it's up to the little - to properly store and use it so as not to spoil it. Follow these two tips and you should be fine:

Do not warm... From all of the above, you already understood that heating honey to a temperature above 37 degrees deprives it of all useful qualities. Unique enzymes are destroyed, antiseptic properties disappear. And if you heat it up to 80-85 degrees, you will get a carcinogenic substance containing toxic oxymethylfurfural. Therefore, nectar cannot be added to hot tea, milk or cocoa! And even for cosmetic purposes (masks, scrubs, etc.), the substance is not very heated.
Do not store in metal containers... There are acids in a natural product that, by oxidizing the metal, will bring its particles into honey, but the amount of useful substances from such chemical reactions in it will decrease. After consuming such nectar, at best, you will get heartburn, and at worst, poisoning. To prevent this from happening, keep your purchase in glass jars, earthen jugs, wooden tubs, porcelain and ceramic dishes are also suitable. It is also not necessary to roll jars of honey with a metal lid, it will perfectly survive under a regular plastic one.

By the way! There is a myth that honey collected by bees in the mountains is better than ordinary, flat honey. In fact, the whole advantage lies in the environmental friendliness of such mountain nectar. But the concentration of nutrients does not depend at all on the height of the places where it was collected. A good beekeeper even on the plain will find a clean place away from roads and industrial facilities, and can even agree with farmers or an agronomist of an agricultural enterprise to place an apiary near flowering fields (this is beneficial to everyone). If you trust the seller and know that the bees did not collect nectar along the road routes, then you can be sure that this honey is in no way inferior to mountain honey.

How to distinguish real honey from fake - watch the video:

Now you know how to identify a fake honey, apply the knowledge in practice, and you will never fall for the tricks of unscrupulous sellers. And compliance with the storage rules will keep your sweet purchase from spoiling.

Hello dear readers! If you often look at my blog, you know that I use honey a lot in my recipes. Today I want to talk to you just about him. What types and varieties are there? How to check the quality of honey at home? Where can I buy good honey? You will find answers to these questions and other interesting facts in this article.

A bit of history

The mention of honey was found in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Pharaohs used it as a monetary equivalent and considered it the most valuable offering to their gods. Honey is mentioned in the Bible, and the Greeks considered it the food of the gods. In the eleventh century, it was offered to German lords as a ransom for the peasants.

Today it is used as a remedy and just a delicious treat. This is a universal remedy that can improve the health of a person at any age.

At the end of summer, beekeepers organize fairs where you can buy a variety of beekeeping products. Every buyer can be faced with a counterfeit of this useful product. To prevent this from happening, I propose to consider the most sophisticated methods of falsification.

There are several known ways to counterfeit

Feeding bees with sugar - within acceptable limits (no more than 8 kg per season), feeding is necessary for bees to survive. This is compensation for the pumped out honey. Even in this form, the sugar syrup, passed through the proboscis, is enriched with protein, but such a product almost does not contain useful trace elements in its composition.
Another method of falsification is the addition of sugar diluted in water with citric acid, flavors can be added. This species is suspiciously white.
Juices of watermelon or melon can be added, which, when evaporated, acquire viscous properties. Citric acid is used for hydration, and the smell is imparted with the help of artificial honey essence or natural honey. To do this, use varieties that have bright aromas (buckwheat, coriander or linden).
Sometimes potato or corn starch, chalk, or wheat flour are added. These additives significantly increase the volume of the product. You can determine them by dropping a drop of iodine into honey dissolved in water. If the honey is of poor quality, then blue stains will appear.

For coloring, add tea, St. John's wort or turmeric. Additional colorants may precipitate when dissolved. Artificial honey has believable properties, it tastes and smells good.

Sometimes it is possible to detect falsification only in laboratory conditions. It contains simple carbohydrates, minerals, but lacks bioactive substances, dextrans and pollen.

How to choose the right one in appearance

The natural product has various shades: from light to dark or brown. Dark is healthier (buckwheat, burdock), as it contains more minerals, iron, copper, manganese. Light - linden, cotton, acacia. It is very aromatic. Honey collected from different plants is called polyferrous.

Natural honey contains pollen particles and will crystallize over time. Fake, transparent, prone to delamination and will always have a liquid consistency.

To taste

The taste should be sugary and astringent. Buckwheat and sunflower have the brightest and most pronounced taste, and linden is very delicate. Real, bakes and dissolves in your mouth. If there is a fake, it does not dissolve and you feel the taste of caramel or sugar syrup, it does not leave a pleasant burning sensation.

Action on the skin

The good one is completely absorbed into the skin and is easy to rub. A fake leaves a sticky mark and particles that do not dissolve.

Paper check

The drop should not spread over the paper. From "linden", a stain spreads on the paper. This indicates the presence of water in the contents.

By consistency

Natural flows down from the spoon continuously, with a thin thread, and is stacked in layers into the pagoda. Poor quality, drips and splashes. A drop of counterfeit immediately falls into the bulk.

Sugar check

A piece of bread is dipped in honey, in natural, it will harden, in fake - it will soften.

How to tell if there is chalk?

To give the honey diluted with water, chalk is added. It is colorless and odorless. You can identify it by dropping vinegar - a hiss appears.

Determination of counterfeit using metal

Revealing natural honey with a hot wire, based on its properties, does not stick to hot metal objects. The fake will remain on a stick.

By weight

High-quality, harder than unnatural. A liter jar of the present, weighs at least 1.4 kilograms.

Proper storage

You need to store in a ceramic jar or a small dark glass container. You can use enameled or stainless steel dishes, and for crystallized dishes, waxed paper dishes are suitable. An iron container will not work, as it may oxidize with the formation of substances hazardous to health.

Wooden containers are not suitable for all. From oak - will give honey a dark color, and conifers - bitterness.

Honey is able to adsorb odors, so it should be kept away from strong smelling substances. It also absorbs moisture, which makes it fluid, so the place needs to be dry.

Varieties of honey

Acacia. Light yellow in color, has decongestant properties and the ability to thin bile. Bees collect it during the flowering period of acacia - May, and pump it out in mid-July. This is one of the most valuable varieties. It contains a full range of vitamins and minerals. Basic properties:

useful in blood diseases;
increases the level of hemoglobin;
improves sleep;
normalizes carbohydrate metabolism;
stimulates the brain;
used for skin diseases.

It is used for sports nutrition, as an energy supplement, as well as for diabetic treatment. Acacia honey can be pale yellow or white, depending on the type of acacia it was harvested from. Natural honey is not bitter, it is liquid and viscous. In one day, a bee colony collects 12 kg of this product.

Mountain - refers to polyferous (forbs). Collected in a clean mountain climate, it has healing properties. The color is varied, from light to brown. It has a spicy, fruity taste and is rich in trace elements. Used to treat anemia and hypovitaminosis. Possesses antifungal properties. It is used topically for wound healing. Helps with diseases of the respiratory tract, mouth, heart and vascular system.

Buckwheat - is considered the most useful. Refers to dark varieties. Has a pronounced aroma. It contains antibiotics and enzymes. The unique combination of nutrients made it indispensable for infectious diseases.

Buckwheat honey has a bactericidal effect against staphylococcus and Escherichia coli. Medicinal properties increase when combined with vitamin C. It has an expectorant and diaphoretic effect, therefore it is effective for colds and pulmonary diseases.

Clover - white or amber. Has a peculiar candy taste, transparent color and herbal aroma. It has a healing effect in diseases of the liver, heart, gynecological diseases. It has a regenerating effect and is used to heal wounds.

Herbs - honey is obtained from flowering plants, trees and shrubs growing in the same area. Collect it throughout the summer. May have a different color and aroma of the plants prevailing in the area. Golden brown in color. Has a bactericidal effect. It is used for various inflammatory diseases, insomnia and sclerosis.

Honey is a healthy dietary product. 100 grams contains 300 calories, and sugar contains 400. It is not recommended for people suffering from carbohydrate metabolism disorders and allergic reactions.

Where to buy honey

Nowadays there is a lot of low-quality honey, both on store shelves and in markets. The product is not cheap and it is a pity when you run into a fake.

Naturally, the safest way to avoid falsification is to get your own honey or buy it from relatives and friends. But you must admit that not everyone has their own apiary or friends in the countryside.

Therefore, to buy honey, I can suggest a trusted place - a store Ecotopia... I have been taking it there for a year now and I can say that there is a really high-quality product at good prices. There are shops in St. Petersburg and Moscow. For other regions, there is delivery by mail. True, I don't know the prices for delivery.